University of Vermont junior Elora Silver was on the subway in Lille, France, returning home from a fun Friday night out with friends. When she emerged from underground, her cellphone flooded with messages.

“I had like 10 different messages from people all asking if I was OK — which is kind of a weird way to find out something is happening in your country,” Silver said.

Silver's relatives and friends were eager for news following deadly terror attacks in Paris that left scores dead in apparently coordinated bombings and shootings. Lille, a city of nearly 230,000 residents, is about an hour by train from Paris.

Silver, 20, of Windsor, is in France for a year as part of UVM's study-abroad program to study French literature. She arrived in France in September and last was in Paris a month ago.

The messages that inundated Silver's cellphone prompted her to hop on to Facebook to find out what had happened.

She was safe Friday night, she said in a phone interview with the Burlington Free Press, but rattled by the violence in a country where previous terrorist and anti-Semitic incidents already left Silver feeling uneasy.

“I’m not used to living near where anything big or semi-feasibly Earth-shattering is happening,” she said. “It’s very unreal. I’m still reacting, honestly.”

She received an email early Saturday morning Paris time — which is six hours ahead of Vermont — from the International Student Exchange Program asking students to check in "as soon as possible" and assuring them that "your safety is our number one priority."

University of Vermont junior Elora Silver, 20, of Windsor poses outside the Louvre museum in Paris. She is studying in Lille, France, for a year.(Photo: COURTESY ELORA SILVER)

A call to UVM after business hours Friday seeking information about study-abroad students in France was not immediately returned.

Silver, who is Jewish, was aware before leaving for Lille of the terrorist attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead in January, along with more recent incidents of anti-Semitism in the country. She said she decided against wearing her Star of David jewelry in public but made few other concessions.

“I definitely was a little bit concerned about how my Judaism would be interpreted,” Silver said.

Now, though, with fresh violence so close, Silver's fears have deepened — for herself, for friends in Paris, for her sister, who is planning to visit the City of Light next week.

Contact Adam Silverman at 802-660-1854 or asilverman@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wej12.